


We'll Meet Again

by pieckaboo



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - World War II, F/M, Happy Ending, Mentions of sensitive subject matter, Nurse!Mikasa, Soldier!Armin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 09:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13187349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pieckaboo/pseuds/pieckaboo
Summary: Mikasa Ackerman, a volunteer in the Army Nurse Corps, meets an injured Private Armin Arlert in the aftermath of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy. As she nurses him back to health, a bond forms between the two, providing solace from the horrors of war.WW2 AU.





	We'll Meet Again

**Author's Note:**

> This arumika fic is for the amazing Ophelia!  
> Hope you like this (belated) Christmas gift! :)  
> I encourage you all to check out her art on tumblr (@akanomajin) as well! She's drawn a wonderful ereani piece for me :') 
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

_Normandy, France_

_June, 1944_

A mass of green tents covered a large swath of land in the French countryside. The Allied forces had set up medical encampments to treat injured soldiers following the Battle of Normandy so they could quickly be returned to the frontlines.

On a drizzly morning not long after the successful operation, an undetected landmine had gone off in an abandoned village, injuring several soldiers. One was hit with a piece of flying shrapnel, nearly slicing open his abdomen. Two of the larger and more stout U.S. soldiers helped carry their wounded comrade into one of the medical tents to receive treatment, using their shoulders to support his lanky frame.

They found a tent with vacancy, only one other patient sleeping on an outstretched cot, and led him through the green flaps. Upon their arrival, the two nurses inside both looked up from their supplies, one of them eagerly prepped and ready to lend a hand.

“I’ll take him,” she insisted.

She was tall herself, with shoulder length black hair and a poised face. She wore a standard issue white nurse’s uniform that looked like it had been washed several times over, but unsuccessful in removing the heavy residue from all the previous blood stains. Quickly, she made her way over to the wounded soldier.

“Set him up on the table here,” she ordered. The two soldiers followed her command, lifting the injured trooper up onto the table before vacating the tent.

“What’s your name, Private?”

“Arlert. Armin Arlert. Of the 34th Infantry,” he responded quietly, piercing her gaze with a sharp blue-eyed stare. His blond hair was slicked back and a little longer than usually allowed by regulation, implying he had been in the service for quite some time.

“Pleased to meet you, Armin,” the woman replied. _Shame it had to be under these circumstances…_ “I’m Mikasa, I’ll be taking care of you.” She was well-spoken, her accent undeniably American. “Now let's take a look at the damage.”

Armin obliged, carefully unbuttoning his uniform shirt and revealing the six-inch gash across his abdomen.

“That’s definitely going to need some stitches,” Mikasa informed him, studying the wound curiously and unfazed. The gore she’d been exposed to on the daily had desensitized her over time, and at that point she was convinced nothing could truly surprise her anymore.

Armin smiled uneasily at the news, as he had an apprehension towards needles.

“You’ll be fine,” Mikasa relaxed him. “I assure you. You’re in good hands.” He looked noticeably relieved.

She stitched him up in a few minutes, tightly closing the cut and stopping the flow of blood. She took a moment to admire her work, her hand caressing the newly formed scar.

His body shivered as she ran her cold fingers along the skin next to the wound.

“Sorry,” she mumbled when she noticed him twitch a bit. “I forget that I'm out in this tent all day so my fingers get cold as ice.”

“It's ok,” Armin said, voice gruff from the pain. “I don't mind it. Please, continue as you were.”

Mikasa gave him a single nod and began to dress the wound with sterile bandages.

When curiosity arose, she couldn’t help but pry into the details of the seemingly gentle soul before her. “So,” she began, somewhat tentatively, “tell me how someone so quiet and unassuming finds himself out here in battle?”

Armin mulled over the question for a while, before finally answering. “I... enlisted with a childhood friend.” He paused, reminiscing in his youth. “...but he serves in a different unit.”

That was the short explanation. His friend, Private Jaeger, had been assigned to a unit in North Africa, fighting alongside Allied forces against the Germans in dastardly desert terrain.

Mikasa looked disheartened by his answer as she quietly folded up unused bandages.

“I see,” was all she said in response. A beat of silence passed before she offered her condolences. “It must be tough. To feel like you’re alone.”

Armin nodded silently in agreement.

“I just have to make the best of it… and make it out of here alive,” he said. Then, chuckling bitterly to himself, he added, “Although, I’m not doing a great job of it so far.”

“Don’t laugh too hard now,” Mikasa cautioned. “You’ll rip those brand new stitches.”

“Noted. I’ll do my best,” he promised her. “So what about you?”

“What about me?”

“What brings someone like you to this corner of the world?” Armin clarified. “Are you a nurse back home?”

Mikasa shook her head, a smile playing on her lips. “Not quite,” she replied. “You need a formal education to do that, and unfortunately I don’t have the money to attend school. I worked at a small diner on the outskirts of Portland. Little place called ‘Hannes’ Diner’, and their claim to fame is ‘the greatest apple cobbler in Multnomah county’.” A somber grin faded almost as quickly as it appeared before she continued, dismissing the emergence of fond memories. “Anyway, my family… _used to_ own the farm that supplied produce for the diner, and in turn they gave me a job waitressing. Until…”

Until December 7th, 1941.

“Used to?” Armin questioned, perking his head up a bit. “Did they have to sell it or something?”

Mikasa heaved a deep sigh. “They were _forced_ to,” she finally revealed. “Before they were… relocated to a camp in central California.”

Armin took a moment to register what she was telling him.

She didn’t have to explain any further than that. It became obvious to him what she was implying in a matter of seconds. Mikasa’s family was of Japanese descent, and therefore must have been relocated to an internment camp.

 _Executive Order 9066…_ he recalled.

The only reason she was here with him now, and not in a camp herself, was because her family had urged her to enlist in the Army Nurse Corps.

Armin loathed the contradictions of his own country at times.

“Pardon my question,” Armin said grimly, guilt tearing away him. “That’s rough. The good ol’ red white and blue seems to forget their great nation was built by immigrants.”

Mikasa shrugged, having come to accept her circumstances for what they were. “It’s no rougher than what you boys have been going through out there,” she asserted.

“Even so. It’s not right…” Armin said quietly, earning a half-smile from her. After a few moments of silence between them, Mikasa sauntered over to the table and began to lift his arm around her neck.

“Ok, up with you,” she said as she helped to lower his legs down to the grass. “Let’s move you to an empty bed now so you can get some rest.”

After Armin tried too quickly to stand on his own, Mikasa eased him into a much slower pace. “ _Gently_ ,” she instructed him.

Armin grimaced in pain. “Guess I’m not as strong as I think I am.”

“Nonsense,” Mikasa assured him. “You’re just a little weak from the loss of blood. We’ll get you back on your feet in no time.”

She walked him over to an empty bed near the back of the tent, away from the noise and the cold air drafting through. Mikasa guided him carefully onto the bed, instructing his legs to curl up so they could fit on the bed without hanging off.

“Thank you,” he said as she draped a blanket over him. “For everything.”

She smiled in return. “Get some rest. We’ll check on you in the morning.”

* * *

Armin woke to the sound of soldiers wailing in pain, and the hustle and bustle of several medics attending to them. He spotted Mikasa’s silhouette among the moving bodies, and tried to rise up to get her attention.

“Stay right where you are, Private,” she warned him, a stern expression etched on her face. “I’ll come to you.”

Armin obeyed and remained in place. She slid the blanket off his torso and helped him prop up against the bed frame. She then lifted his shirt to reveal his abdomen in order to check his bandages.

“Looks good. No bleeding through and the stitches have stayed intact. Just needs to be cleaned again. Then I’ll redress it with fresh bandages.”

“Sounds good to me. So I’ll be back on my feet soon?” Armin asked.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, soldier. It’s still gonna take a few days for your wound to heal fully, so I’ll have to keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t reopen it.”

“Got it. Though I have to say, this is a rather tedious process.”

“You’re not trying to run out on me already, are you?” Mikasa asked impishly.

“No, never,” he responded, voice sincere.

They smiled at each other, eyes locked, before Mikasa turned away, a noticeable blush on her face.

* * *

Over the next week, Armin and Mikasa found an incredibly vast amount of things to talk about, trading stories and anecdotes from their past with each other. The tent never filled up with more than three or four patients at a time, so Mikasa usually had time free to chat with Armin when he wasn’t resting. They learned more about each other’s families, their childhoods and upbringing, and their plans for the future, all the while maintaining an optimistic outlook. Mikasa learned that Armin was from a humble suburban community outside of Reno, and that he dreamt of becoming a marine biologist, utterly fascinated with the ocean and its mysterious inhabitants.

But then the war broke out before he could finish his studies.

His childhood friend was hell-bent on fighting crazed fascists, and Armin had only enlisted to follow him- as some sort of way to ensure his survival, he supposed. Even after finding out they had been assigned to different companies, Armin held the belief that they’d both make it home alive and reunite in their hometown with their families. The tumultuous chain of events ultimately brought him to the present; roughly two weeks after the D-Day invasion.

After several days of treatment, Mikasa knew that Armin would probably be healthy enough to go soon. She had come to enjoy spending time talking with him, more so than she did with any patients she treated previously.

One particularly busy morning, Mikasa had been summoned to help at a different tent that saw a huge increase in traffic. When she returned back to her own, she noticed that Armin was gone, and the bed he had occupied was freshly made, new sheets and all.

“What happened to Private Arlert?” Mikasa asked a fellow nurse.

“He was discharged and sent back into the field while you were gone,” she replied.

“Oh,” was all Mikasa could manage, her voice lingering with disappointment. "I see." Even though she knew he would have to go eventually, she was sorry she didn’t get to say goodbye. And it was unlikely that they would cross paths again, because the soldiers stayed in separate barracks from the volunteers with the Nurse Corps; if they stayed _at all._

Unless he were injured again, (which Mikasa prayed would never happen) it would be the last time she’d ever see him.

* * *

_Portland, Oregon_

_1945_

Over a year had passed, and indeed Mikasa never saw Private Arlert again. The war had finally come to an end, and everyone returned home and began to insert themselves back into civilian life. Mikasa’s family had been released from the Manzanar camp, though they didn’t have much of a home to return to. Still, they did the best they could in attempting to resume their old lives as farmers, finding work in orchards and small homesteads.

Mikasa resumed the waitress role at Hannes’ Diner, hoping to save up enough money for a home of her own someday. She knew how unlikely that was for an unmarried woman, but it was the only thing that gave her peace of mind after witnessing the horrors of war up close.

She thought about Armin when she had a quiet moment to herself, though she tried not to dwell on her thoughts for too long. Having served in the Army Nurse Corps for nearly two years, she’d grown accustomed to praying for the soldiers she’d sent back to the frontlines, hoping they would make it out of the war alive. But the more rational side of her knew it was unlikely they all would. Mikasa tried not to think about the possibility of Armin’s body buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in the war-torn hollows of Europe. Instead, she focused on her family and work, always keeping busy enough to avoid the treachery of her often dismal reveries.

On a particularly quiet and uneventful evening at Hannes’ Diner, Mikasa found herself alone as it neared closing time. She began to wash the last of the dishes, piling them high in her carrying tray, her back turned to the diner and emptied booths.

The bell above the door suddenly jingled behind her, alerting her of a patron waiting at the entrance.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” she said over her shoulder, yet to turn around.

“That’s unfortunate,” a familiar voice mused. “I heard this place is known for their apple cobblers.”

Mikasa froze in her tracks, slowly turning around to meet the voice.

The same pair of blue eyes from Normandy bore into her, exuding the same warmth she’d recalled in her dreams.

“Private Arlert,” she whispered, tears in her eyes as she met his. Then, after shaking her head, she corrected herself. “ _Armin_ … Why... how... are you here?”

Armin smiled meekly in response. “I remembered,” he said. “Hannes’ Diner on the outskirts of Portland.”

Mikasa blinked a few times in disbelief, suddenly lightheaded.

“Forgive me for showing up this late,” Armin continued. “But I’d like to...”

Before he could finish his sentence, Mikasa rushed across the foyer to where he stood and wrapped her arms around him in a delicate embrace. Armin happily obliged, holding her by the waist with equal tenderness.

“Welcome back,” Mikasa exhaled in passionate relief. It was all she could do to keep herself from breaking down, nearly choking over her own words.

“It’s good to be home,” Armin whispered gently in her ear. Although he was miles away from Reno, he hadn’t truly felt at peace until this moment; with Mikasa in his arms.

 

The war was over, and now their new lives could begin.

**Author's Note:**

> Arumika needs more recognition because it's like...??? peRFeCT??!!!?!?!
> 
> More WWII AU fics are in the works! I gotta do something with ereannie, and pokopiku is my current muse soooo you'll probably see future fics featuring those lovely couples some time (hopefully) soon.
> 
> I'm also a sucker for WWII AUs in general, so all the more reason, right?
> 
> Hope you all have a Happy New Year! :)


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